Ramsey County Commissioner Tony Bennett said the Minnesota Vikings stadium package unveiled by the governor’s office Thursday was a disappointing slap in the face to the east metro.

For the past few months, he watched as years of work to bring the Vikings to Arden Hills slipped away because politicians favored building in downtown Minneapolis. They said the Ramsey County plan to build at a polluted ammunition plant site was too expensive and required new taxes.

Now that the Minneapolis plan is public, Bennett questioned whether the choice truly would be cheaper.

“I think there’s a lot of questions out there,” Bennett said.

He said the decommissioned Twin Cities Army Ammunition Plant in Arden Hills underwent far more intense scrutiny than the Minneapolis location.

Under the Minneapolis plan, critics said, the state’s contribution to the stadium’s construction has grown to $398 million. That could double after interest over the life of the 30-year bonds is included.

Costs for infrastructure such as parking ramps have not been spelled out. And there are questions about whether the plan forces state taxpayers to foot too much of the bill for cost overruns.

The $1.1 billion Arden Hills proposal never won the full support of the governor’s office or made it past key lawmakers, though it would have cleaned up hundreds of polluted acres and returned the land to the tax rolls.

But Minneapolis, too, has “a lot of hurdles,” Bennett said, noting that some city council members have expressed a reluctance to support the spending.

“If they’re at $975 million, they’re almost up to what our price was,” Bennett said.

East metro leaders will continue to watch as the stadium plan advances – or not – at the Capitol and Minneapolis City Hall.

“I think there are a number of things that still need to happen for the Minneapolis proposal,” Arden Hills Mayor Dave Grant said.

Proponents of an Arden Hills stadium maintain that the state is overlooking an opportunity to clean up the polluted TCAAP property and improve the frequently bottlenecked Interstate 35W/Interstate 694 interchange.

Ramsey County has an agreement in principle to buy several hundred acres of the polluted military land from the federal government; in turn, the feds would pay for the cleanup. Developing the land for a stadium surrounded by commercial real estate would have returned a large portion of the abandoned military property to the tax rolls.

Bennett said the Minneapolis stadium would be funded by extending the life on the same sorts of taxes that were shot down for Arden Hills – sales taxes and hospitality taxes.

Arden Hills City Council member Fran Holmes is more interested in what becomes of the TCAAP site.

“It’s not over until it’s over. (Legislative and team officials) may still come knocking on our door with a new plan,” Holmes said.

She’d like to see it used for parkland and would consider some mixed-use development.

St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman continued to express concern that funding for the stadium is tied to money for renovations at Target Center in downtown Minneapolis. The arena is home to the Timberwolves and Lynx and competes directly with St. Paul’s Xcel Energy Center for concert bookings.

Coleman’s office says that giving Target Center a competitive edge could hurt downtown St. Paul, which needs major acts at the Xcel to draw out-of-towners to shops and restaurants.

“We’re still analyzing the numbers,” said Joe Campbell, a spokesman for Coleman. “More than $1 billion in public investment in the west metro, with no consideration for the east metro, continues to be a concern, and we’ll look at that more closely as we move forward.”

Brady Gervais contributed to this report. Frederick Melo can be reached at 651-228-2172. Follow him at twitter.com/ FrederickMelo.

Frederick Melo came to the Pioneer Press in 2005 and brings an aggressive East Coast attitude to St. Paul beat reporting. He spent nearly six years covering crime in the Dakota County courts before switching focus to the St. Paul mayor's office, city council, and all things neighborhood-related, from the city's churches to its parks and light rail. A resident of Hamline-Midway, he is married to a Frogtown woman. He Tweets manically at @FrederickMelo

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